Total Float

no. TF are based on project completion. display early start variance in ur column to see the impact in the activity.

Yes I do know that, TF is for the project. But as during the planning phase the formula of TF= Late Dates - Early Dates is always correct, it should be also true after the update. Why it does not reflect this formula after the update? Why it is nil after providing actual dates?

This is my question.

Mohammed
It’s by design in old P3 and in Primavera Enterprise/P5/P6. If you want to keep the TF you’ll have to use a user defined field and a global change.
Regards
Dieter

actuals have no floats! the thing happened already, floats only exist during the planning stage, when the thing is still floating (you still dont know if it will happen or not!), but you got your plan with early and late dates wherein you can calculate floats!

Mohammed,

You are a very wise person. You have figured out what 98% of the other Planners have not. Most people (including myself earlier in my carrier) assume that since P3 (and now P6) blank out the Total Float column once the activity has been statused as complete, that this must mean that completed activities do no have float. You, on the other hand inherently understand that all activities (including completed ones) must be considered when computing the CPM. CPM calculations only consider remaining duration, not completion status.

The first version of P5 was released with total float values displayed even for completed activities. Service Pack 1 was shortly released to ‘correct’ this problem. The literature for that service pack explained that the value was being suppressed from printing but that it was retained in the database. MS Project, on the other hand prints a “0” in the total float column for completed activities.

Look to the Early Start and Early Finish date columns. They show real dates (not the actual dates) created when the CPM was last computed. Subtracting these two dates will yield the Total Float figures that you noted were missing. Congratulations on your insight!

Thank you Ronald, this was very kind of you.
You know, I think I will send to Primavera to consider this option to show the TF even after activity completion.
This will help a lot to display what I call - Actual Longest Path-. That as you know, when we finalize the project, all activities are completed; we will not be able to determine criticality, Means you won’t be able to prove your right to claim upon delay caused by the client as example.

If we kept on tracking the TF even after activities completion, we will be able to determine Actual Longest Path. If delayed activities belong to this path, then we get a solid cause.

Thank you & Regards
Mohamed